The Crimson Contract: Update 0.10.0
This is the biggest update we've shipped. Full controller support is in, enemy dossiers now introduce each type as you meet it, and a long pass on early difficulty should make the opening rounds far less punishing. There's also a new Town outro, new consumables, and a pile of multiplayer fixes.
What's New
- Town Hard now ends with a proper outro scene, so clearing the last quarantine zone actually feels like finishing something.
- New stamina and health consumables that change your recharge rate and recharge delay. Some are unlocked from the start instead of sitting behind gates.
- Enemy dossiers now reveal each zombie type the moment you first meet it, with a summary card, a countdown to the next one, and a Skip All that clears the whole batch.
- Patches gets a proper introduction. HQ sends in a medical unit after the Cabin incident.
- Squad scores now appear on the high score boards alongside solo runs.
- The tutorial is longer and covers more of the game, including consumables and what the control mechanics actually accomplish.
Improvements
- Full controller support across the menus. Focus no longer gets lost or trapped, the right stick scrolls, Credits and Guides navigate and back out correctly, and B/O resumes from the pause menu.
- You can enter text with a controller now. The virtual keyboard covers the multiplayer join code and includes punctuation and caps lock.
- You can pause while downed.
- The HUD no longer flickers between controller and keyboard layouts when a pad is connected but you're playing on keyboard.
- Consumables are easier to notice. Pickups glow while they sit on the ground, the HUD gives a quiet pulse, and the Rendezvous menu highlights what you've earned.
- Consumable icons were redrawn to sit better with the rest of the UI.
- Dialogue advances on a single press, even mid-reveal, and the tutorial's Next prompt keeps up now.
- Rendezvous score grades and boss warnings now match the rest of the game's palette.
Balance & Tuning
- Lowered the early difficulty floor. Spawn volume is down, each difficulty tier starts at its own crowd pressure instead of all opening the same, and enemy damage and abilities are toned down in the Tutorial and Cabin.
- Animals move slower across the board, with per-difficulty speed ranges, and fewer large animals turn up in a wave.
- Cash earnings are up to offset the lower spawn counts.
- Last Stand no longer starts at the top of the difficulty scale. It still climbs there, but you get room to build earnings and post a score first.
- Easy kill-count objectives were trimmed to match the shorter rounds.
- Rendezvous round pacing is now configured per zone and difficulty, so you can push deeper.
- Shotgunner bullets travel 35% less far.
- Stamina is more forgiving. Melee costs stamina now, sprint burn is gentler, and an auto-recharge floor keeps you from locking yourself out.
- Retuned consumable drop rates, including far fewer barricades. The strike team consumable no longer drops when everyone already has one.
- Bishop caps his mines at 3 on the ground at a time.
- Melee staggers and knocks back what it doesn't kill, with a stun star over any staggered enemy including bosses. Kicked animals pause and take the push instead of playing a reaction.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the invisible NPC in the Forest Cabin. It was the helicopter pilot, who was also dropping out of his seat on the way in.
- Money from zombies killed near the map edge now lands somewhere you can actually reach.
- Zombies no longer sit at the edge of the map attacking nothing.
- Your AI teammates prioritize reviving you over grabbing cash, pick up money for the party, and switch their lasers off when they go down.
- Bishop stays near the party instead of drifting to the map edge.
- Fixed a hard freeze at match start when the first dossier reveal landed while the UI was still rebuilding.
- Zombie auras show for everyone now, not just the host.
- Zombies no longer deal damage after they go down.
- Spectating no longer shows distant zombies stuck in their low-detail state.
- Bosses go idle for the duration of a nuke instead of carrying on attacking.
- Fixed two pause problems: closing a dossier while paused no longer unfreezes zombies, and pausing during the between-round countdown no longer hides the rest of it.
- The Wretch's flamethrower emitter is invisible again.
- Star operative nameplates show the star instead of a blank box.
- The Forest cabin opening narrative renders again instead of playing over a black screen.
- The Town minimap objective marker clears once you reach the objective.
- Fixed the Town intro cinematic in multiplayer. Everyone gets staged and moves, Bishop stows his weapon, client arms look right, and nobody slides across the ground on their knees at the end.
- The Town outro transitions correctly for clients after "To Be Continued".
- Players no longer float or overlap in the lobby.
- Consumable aura effects render correctly instead of showing up bright pink.
- Mines no longer explode twice.
- The Rendezvous menu appears after the first real round again, and provision rewards render and sync to clients.
- Zombie dossiers show their lore text and contractor credit again.
- The dossier reveal card no longer clips the companion dialogue pane, and the Shotgunner dossier holds until the matching radio chatter so it stops giving away their status early.
- Other players' magazine counts no longer show while spectating.
- The consumable glow no longer strands on the wrong slot after you use one.
- Fixed a long stall in the Cabin introduction waves before the Boomers.
- Smoke grenades drop at your feet and the cloud appears right away instead of waiting to fall and land.
- Star NPCs carry only the weapons unlocked in their zone.
- High scores show for clients on the Last Stand game over screen.
Want a say in what comes next? Join the Discord and help steer the roadmap.
Thanks for playing. Keep the bug reports and feedback coming.